Nothing stands still in farming, and there’s plenty afoot at Holehouse Farm as the Logan family prepare, firstly, for spring, and, secondly, for the NMR RABDF Gold Cup open day. British Dairying welcomes Alistair Logan as he writes his first column.
hen I sat down to start think- ing about writing a diary piece
for British Dairying, it took me back to my school days, somewhere I didn’t particularly want to be! Over the next year I’m going to attempt to give you all an insight into what we have been doing, what we are doing and what we plan to do at Holehouse. Having gone from anonymity to a certain level of fame within farming circles, in a very short space of time, it has come as a bit of a shock to us all. But there is also a sense of pride in being recognised by our peers for doing a good job of what we do day
in, day out.
In 2021, we were nominated for, and subsequently won, the Agriscot Scottish Dairy Farm of the Year. Due to Covid restrictions, this was
presented to us in February 2022 – and almost a year to the day later,
Alistair (right) and Stuart Logan are hoping the weather will dry up before they start lambing their 1,700 ewes
Anne and I found ourselves at Dairy Tech, where, to our surprise, we were announced as winners of the NMR RABDF Gold Cup.
A dream win
To be nominated for, reach the final shortlist and then ultimately win the Gold Cup was something that we hadn’t even dare dream about. It was always a competition held in the highest regard, and has been won by some of the leading dairy farms in the UK over its 100-plus year existence. I think I’m right in saying that it’s only been won by Scottish farms five times and most definitely never by one from a Less Favoured Area, high rainfall, late farm in North Ayrshire! We are looking forward to the open day on 10 August, and showing you all what we do here. We don’t think we do much differently from many farms, but we do try to do everything as well as possible. We try not to put a square peg in a round hole, so work with the farm and climate we have, and not try to beat Mother Nature –
you won’t often win!
We have got to give credit to the people with whom we have
surrounded ourselves over the past 10 years, during a period of big change in our business, from our vet Michael Fallon to nutritionist Robbie Duncan, breeding consultant David Sayce, bank manager Rodney Wallace (maybe the most important!), builder Robert Veitch, and our accountant Neil Steven.
We have had a lot of sound advice and guidance, but I think the whole family here today, and our forefa- thers, deserve most of the credit for the drive, vision, long hours worked, determination to succeed, and sheer bloody-mindedness that has got us where we are today.
I would say to anyone that it’s not what you’ve got, it’s what you do with it that counts. And I hope we can inspire other dairy farmers who farm in more challenging areas to do everything, every day, as well as possible. Challenge yourself and those around you to get to the next level, take a chance on opportunities when they arrive, and remember that sometimes your biggest challenge can be your biggest asset.
Planning for the open day is well under way, with many things already in place, and a steady stream of trade stand bookings coming in. Free tickets are now available to book on Eventbrite.
One thing that we cannot plan is the weather, but we can only hope that it improves before August, or the day is going to be even more challenging than it could be.
Wet conditions
Currently, the weather is extremely taxing, with hardly a dry day for the past three weeks. We are just about to start lambing 1,700 ewes outdoors on extremely wet ground conditions – thankfully the forecast for early April looks a bit more promising for some heat and a few showers.
We applied 7,410 gallons/ha of slurry to the silage fields in early February, but as yet haven’t applied any bagged fertiliser, as ground and weather conditions are not good enough yet. We usually take first cut silage in mid-May, so hopefully we will be able to get on the ground in the first part of April. Having bought our fertiliser in autumn last year, at much higher prices than today, we want to make best use of it.
When it comes to breeding, genomic testing was something that we had been considering for a while, but have never pressed the button on. But we have now decided to start, using the Clarafide Plus test from Zoetis. We sampled 180 heifers from bulling age down, with the first set of results due back in mid-April.
We decided to go with that test as it provides a huge range of results in health traits, as well as type and pro- duction. We use the dairy wellness profit index (DWP) and wellness trait index (WT) in our sire selection, and these are only available through this test.
I’m sure our results will make for interesting reading, and there will be a few surprises. I’ll hopefully be able to share them with you next month. We have also started the ball rolling on our next building project, with a shed for three to six or seven-month- old calves. We have started clear- ing the site, the steel is ordered and should be getting farbricated shortly before being sent off to be galvanised. The plan is that it will be erected and finished by the open day. Watch
this space!